ATLANTA – A Republican lawyer who interned at the White House during Donald Trump’s administration is challenging Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor who brought charges against the former president for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Courtney Kramer worked in the White House counsel’s office during the Trump presidency and is active in Republican organizations. She is the first Republican to run for district attorney in Fulton County since 2000.

Fulton County, which is home to 11% of the state’s electorate and includes most of the city of Atlanta, is a Democratic stronghold.

Willis took office in January 2021 after defeating his predecessor, and former boss, District Attorney Paul Howard in a bitter fight in the 2020 Democratic primary.

He made headlines just a month into his term when he announced in February 2021 that he was investigating whether Trump and others broke any laws in trying to overturn his narrow loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden. Two and a half years later, after an investigation that included calling dozens of witnesses before a special grand jury, he obtained a sprawling racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 others in August 2023.

Four people pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors. Trump and the remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

When he entered the district attorney race in March, Kramer called Trump’s prosecution a politically motivated case and a waste of resources. But he said if he becomes district attorney he will recuse himself from that case because he worked with two of the defendants.

Kramer, 31, said one of her top priorities will be to focus on “initial processing,” which she said involves reviewing cases quickly when they come in so they can make bail decisions, provide discovery to attorneys advocates and a decision can be made about whether an early plea offer can be used to resolve the case.

Willis, 53, said she is proud of a pre-charge diversion program she started and a program in schools to encourage students to choose alternatives to gangs and crime, as well as reductions in homicides and the accumulation of unindicted cases during his tenure. He said he would focus on creating more county resources for victims of domestic violence during a second term.